NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
This is the account of a piece of real biological work, well conceived and admirably carried out. It is truly zoological, inasmuch as palæontology has not been neglected; and by the inclusion of botany it becomes in a proper sense a full account of the natural history of the island. Christmas Island is situated in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, in S. lat. 10° 25', E. long. 105° 42'. Java, the nearest land, is about 190 miles to the north, while some 900 miles to the south-east is the coast of North-West Australia. Geologically, as Mr. Andrews describes it, "the island is, in fact, the flat summit of a submarine mountain more than 15,000 ft. high, the depth of the platform from which it rises being about 14,400 ft., and its height above the sea being upwards of 1000 ft." Sir John Murray defrayed the necessary expenses for the expedition, which was successfully carried out by Mr. Andrews, one of the staff of the British Museum.
Collections were made in all branches of natural history, and these, as a rule, have been worked out by specialists in their respective groups. Anthropology is alone discarded, but necessarily, for when visited by H.M.S. 'Egeria' in 1887, "the island was found to be entirely uninhabited, and there was no indication that it had ever been occupied."
Readers of this Journal will enjoy the bionomical notes of Mr. Andrews which are attached to the more technical references to many species. We can only notice a few. The Rat (Mus macleari) has for natural food mainly fruits and young shoots, and to obtain these it ascends trees to a great height. We read:— "I have often seen them run up the trailing stems of the lianas, and, in
